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Liberals calling for a free-enterprise coalition with the BC Conservatives are basically saying that Clark's leadership is negotiable as long as Cummins' is, which is hilarious in all kinds of ways.
- Right-wing Liberals are straight-up pissed-off about Clark, but her stepping down or getting pushed out isn't going to happen. The Liberals can't just blow through 3 premiers in one term. That hasn't even happened in BC before, and we hate our premiers.
- Cummins and his VanDerZalmian allies working with anyone except their own egos isn't going to happen. Trust me.
New Democrats are going to pick up, bare minimum, 65 seats. Right-wing Liberal MLA's are either going to bolt to the Conservatives or (more likely) not run in 2013, Conservatives are going to gain a foothold and boot Cummins, and there will be a 4 year scramble to figure out how to create the 3rd incarceration of the free-enterprise coalition.
just had lunch with her and she wondered if you've recovered from your surgergies?????
LOL Now you have me curious as to who your Mom really is.
Actually my one knee is recovering well and I am on my surgeons list for the other one. It was supposed to be over by June but my surgeon is getting a hip replacement and has to take three months off work so maybe early fall, if his recovery goes well.
Did you perhaps mean "incarnation"? Although "incarceration" is perhaps rather apt as well ;-)
But I believe there have already been three incarnations. Prior to BCLib and SoCred, there was the formal electoral alliance where Conservative and Liberal parties avoided splitting the vote so they could govern together and keep the NDP out.
This could well be the week that gives Christy the worst political nitemares she has ever experienced, apart from John' van Dongen's resignation that is.
Chilliwack-Hope: Right-wing split could play into NDP hands
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Chilliwack+Hope+Right+wing+split+could+p...
Throness, who once served as chief of staff to former MP Chuck Strahl, has been tapped to hold the Liberal line.
His conservative credentials should resonate with the area's right-leaning voters, but he's in tough against criminologist and newspaper columnist John Martin, who brings strong name recognition to the table.
John van Dongen's presence on the campaign trail has added further weight to Martin's cause. And a win would give the Conservatives a stronger beachhead in the legislature, something that could prove tempting to other Liberal MLAs. A recent poll showed 33 per cent of Liberal voters in 2009 intend to vote Conservative this time around.
But an even split on vote night could open the door to Gwen O'Mahony, a community worker who is also relatively well known in the area.
She finished second to Penner in the 2009 general election and also ran unsuccessfully in the 2011 federal election.
The carbon tax, the proposed garbage incinerator, spiking hydro rates, increasing MSP premiums, justice funding and education have been some of the themes on the ground.
Pundits are calling this one a close three-way race.
Last time around: Penner cruised to an easy victory in the 2009 election by capturing 53 per cent of the vote. The NDP's O'Mahony finished second with 33 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Conservatives' Hans Mulder (seven per cent).
What the expert says: "Chilliwack-Hope is a test of the extent to which Christy Clark has been able to rebrand the image of the Christy Clark Liberals as conservatives," says Norman Ruff, political scientist emeritus at the University of Victoria.
"If there is a split among the non-NDPers, it puts the NDP into play."
Double byelection puts squeeze on B.C. Liberals
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Double+byelection+puts+squeeze+Liberals/...
Looking at those numbers posted in the Chilliwack-Hope article:
53 per cent liberal, NDP's O'Mahony finished second with 33 per cent of the vote, ahead of the Conservatives' Hans Mulder (seven per cent).
53 % Liberal, NDP (with the same candidate) 33%, and Conservative (7%), and with the rise of the NDP provincially to 1st place, should make this race more than winnable for the NDP. The NDP just needs to hold their vote, and perhaps pick up a bit from left leaning Libs who see their side lossing and switch hit, and a big bleed from the right side of that lib vote, and the NDP comes right up the middle.
Prior to the SoCreds it wasn't a formal electoral alliance, but a preferential ballot designed to keep the CCF out. To the chagrin of the Liberals and Conservatives, it gave them the SoCreds.
I like the campaign organizer in Chiliwack-Hope.
The preferential ballot was towards the end of the grand coalition. It wasn't what got them in the first time around.
In 1941 the CCF got 33.36% which was a plurality of the popular vote, but only 14 seats to the Liberals' 21 and the Conservatives' 12. A Lib-Con coalition government ensued. In 1945, they ran together as an electoral coalition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_general_election,_1945
Although the Coalition won fewer votes than the Liberal and Conservative parties won in total in the previous election, the Coalition still won over half of the votes, and was able to form a majority government.
They ran again as a coalition in 1949. By the 1952 election the coalition had split so they tried out the preferential ballot. This ballot immediately failed to provide Libs and Cons with the desired result, instead producing a SoCred minority government. The 1953 election under the same system produced a SC majority. In 1956 they went back to FPTP.
That would be the 5th right-wing coalition, if what we learned in BC History class at UBC is accurate.
1st coalition -- Lib-Con coalition government, 1941-1952
2nd coalirion -- Socreds, 1952-1972
3rd coalition -- Socreds, 1975-1991
4th coalition -- BC Liberals, 1994-2012?
Our prof counted the Socreds as two different coalitions. He claimed that the socreds were not a coalition from the '72 election until early '75 by which point the 4? of the 5 Liberal MLA's elected in the '72 election had crossed the floor the the Socreds. It could also be argued that the Socreds were only one coalition, which would make the BC Liberals the third coalition, and a post-BC Liberal coalition the 4th.
CFL